DISCLAIMER: Before we begin this blog post, we want to preface the severity of working with complex issues. Unless you are a doctor, therapist, or other licensed medical professional, we strongly recommend the 3 DO NOTS: Do NOT prescribe, Do NOT diagnose, & Do NOT claim you can treat specific disorders/diseases. When in doubt, refer them out.
For further explanation on this topic, read: What Can I Treat as a Hypnotherapist? (Or Why We Don’t Care About Labels)).
Ok, so now that we got that out of the way, we’d like to introduce you to some simple, easy-to-remember principles when working with clients who might have more than one problem or a complex issue.
My Client Has More Than One Issue - Where Do I Begin?
Whether you are a beginner hypnotist or a seasoned veteran of the hypnotic world, chances are you already have (or will) have clients with difficult problems.
Maybe they’ve suffered from multiple traumatic events in their past.
Maybe they have multiple physical ailments.
Whatever the situation may be, chances are pretty high that you will eventually run into this particular situation. Inside The Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy you’ll discover principles on how to work with all sorts of issues, rather than individual techniques. This flexibility will enable you to help people with simple everyday problems as well as difficult, complex ones.
So where exactly do you begin?
Focus on the Here & Now
One of the easiest ways you can start helping clients with complex / multiple problems is by asking two magical questions:
- “What do you want?”
- “What can we work on that will give you the greatest benefit in your life, today?”
Simply put, your clients will come to you feeling a particular way and will want to feel differently. We call this “present” state and “target” state. The present state is the issue, the target state is the solution.
By asking the simple question of “what do you want?”, you’ll quickly get the target state. Whatever the client gives you in terms of what they want, write it down! When your client gives you specific words, use them in the session!
This means, if your client says something like, “I just want to feel like I have control…” or “I want to stop this feeling of overwhelm…” then during the session, feed that information back to them.
Expert Hypno-Tip: Use your client’s EXACT words rather than paraphrasing. Their own words will resonate with them the most, and you’ll maintain rapport throughout the session. Read: Your Client’s Words Really Matter for Better Hypnosis.
The second question, “What can we work on that will give you the greatest benefit in your life, today?”, helps narrow the focus of your work. Instead of guessing what will help your client the most, ask them! Your client’s unconscious mind knows what it needs and will present that information to them. Your job is to listen, maintain rapport, and help them get the result they want.
Change the Past – Change the Future
No matter what issue your client comes to see you for help with, typically the problem isn’t the real problem. What we mean is, your client’s problems are the result of something in the past and their inherent response to the past is now cascading into their present life.
Take for instance somebody who drinks alcohol heavily and wants to stop. At first you may be tempted to help them change the habit, but the real problem isn’t the drinking. Their drinking is the result of something deeper. Sometimes the client is aware of it, sometimes they aren’t.
You can be sure though, their unconscious mind does know. It’s always listening and is always aware. So what can you do with this information?
One of the very first steps in helping your client get the results they want is by helping them to respond to the issue differently. This is accomplished by something called detraumatizing.
Our good friend Melissa Tiers says the best way to preserve a memory is to never remember it, because every time we access it, the memory changes. This happens because we modify the physical protein code which is holding the information of the memory.
This also means that if something difficult or traumatizing happened in the past, by accessing the memory and editing it through hypnosis, your client will begin to notice changes in how they respond to situations which might have triggered them.
So how do you help your clients and detraumatize?
There are quite a few tools and techniques that we teach inside of The Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy, which can be used on top of the principles in order to create phenomenal change.
Some of those ways are:
- Using the Rewind technique to help overcome a phobia or to discharge stored unwanted emotions.
- Delivering empowering direct suggestions
- Using EFT (emotional freedom technique) / tapping.
- Mindscaping.
- Regression to cause.
- Ideomotor work.
Ultimately, these techniques are meant to be used to help your client overcome something difficult in their past by locating what is known as the Initial Sensitizing Event. (ISE).
Once the ISE is located, you would use any of the hypnotic protocols, techniques, or use the tools provided that we teach inside MMHA on that specific event. We also suggest running those same protocols or techniques on not just the first time the event happened, but also the worst time they experienced it, and also the most recent time. Doing this ensures your client is getting the maximum benefit from your work.
Strengthen Your Client’s Inner Ego
It isn’t enough to just help your client overcome a difficult situation from the past. They will feel better initially, but your work doesn’t end there.
As a hypnotist, you have the power to help people feel awesome and this is accomplished with something we call Ego-strengthening. This simply means you want to build your client up with powerful, positive resources, and future pace them.
Expert Tip: Future pacing is simply instructing your client to imagine they are in a future experience where their problem used-to be upsetting. There are multiple ways of accomplishing this that we teach inside of The Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy.
Your client has a plethora of resources in their life experience they can utilize to strengthen their egos. Books, movies, quotes from their favorite people, songs, poetry, dreams, ambitious thoughts, there are so many ways our life experience affects us that any of these (and many more) resources can be used in the session.
Maybe during the hypnosis session you use guided imagery and suggest they find their favorite book with a hand-written note from the author directed at them. Or perhaps you use Mindscaping to help them change their internal landscape.
Whatever the case is, build the resources into your session and install them. This is as simple as saying:
“And only when all these new learnings and resources are up and running and ready for use, then and only then, can your unconscious mind allow you to come all the way to the surface…”
And remember, the client intake is where you’ll gather this information. Asking the right questions can unlock a wide variety of important information on how you can help your client.
When you are ready to discover just how easy it is to help people change their lives for the better, then we would love to have you join us inside of The Mike Mandel Hypnosis Academy. Each lesson is broken down into ‘easy-to-understand-and-remember’ bite sized clips, with the focus being on what works rather than on scripts.
Claim your spot today and join the 7700+ students around the world who are out there making a difference with the skills they’ve learned from us!